[rr] Sun Ready to Push Linux as Alternative to Microsoft

>From NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/18/technology/18SUN.html?todaysheadlines
Sun Ready to Push Linux as Alternative to Microsoft
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 - Sun Microsystems plans to throw its weight behind
the "open source" software movement on Wednesday as part of an industry
effort to offer an alternative to Microsoft's Windows and Office programs.
Sun's challenge, based on the Linux alternative to Windows-based software,
is a daunting one, according to industry analysts, because Microsoft's Office
suite of word-processing, spreadsheet and other software applications is
pervasive in the corporate computing world.
Yet Sun executives said they believed that Microsoft was vulnerable in
cost-sensitive markets like large corporate call centers, which provide
things like customer service; retail banking organizations; and government
and educational institutions.
"The industry is ready," said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president
for software at Sun. "There is a great opportunity for a major systems
company to commercialize a full Linux desktop." Sun plans to promote the
Linux operating system along with Sun's own line of StarOffice applications
programs.
Mr. Schwartz said Microsoft was also at risk because many organizations were
frustrated with computer security issues that continued to plague the
company's software.
Sun, which plans to announce the new strategy at a conference for its
customers on Wednesday, said it would begin shipping the new products in the
next nine months.
Although the Linux operating system for file-sharing server computers has
proved a viable alternative to Microsoft and other vendors in the
price-conscious part of corporate computing, Linux has not yet made
significant inroads among nontechnical personal computer users.
But a number of executives who are involved with open-source software said
that Linux was beginning to catch on among the nontechnical users. One reason
for that, they said, was that Microsoft had changed its pricing for corporate
and government organizations in recent months to a subscription model, which
many customers say has effectively raised the cost of the company's software.
"When Microsoft changed their pricing policy for enterprise customers," said
David Patrick, the president and chief executive of Ximian, a partner of Sun,
"it sent a strong message. And since then our activity has increased
exponentially." Ximian publishes open-source software, including Gnome
desktop applications and Ximian Evolution, a competitor to Microsoft Outlook.
For Sun, a computer maker and software company that has been struggling
along with the dot-com and telecommunications industries, offering an
inexpensive alternative to Microsoft's products is an effort to find new
customers.
Mr. Schwartz argues that besides having lower licensing fees than Microsoft,
the open-source alternative based around Linux and Sun's own StarOffice
program will also offer other indirect cost savings.
"We can support 2,000 users with one system administrator at Sun," he said.
"It requires in the neighborhood of one administrator for every 50 users in
the Windows world."
But he said Sun had no immediate plans to try to compete with Microsoft for
the heart of its user base: white-collar workers and managers.